Shigeru Ban Wins Bid to Design the Tainan Museum of Fine Arts

Pritzker Prize Laureate Shigeru Ban just won an international design competition to build the Tainan Museum of Fine Arts (TMFA). Like much of Ban’s work, the museum will include eco-friendly features such as rainwater harvesting and natural ventilation. When completed, the TMFA will form the centerpiece for Tainan's cultural institutions.

Shigeru Ban Architects‘ TMFA takes the shape of a pentagon – a subtle symbolic representation of Tainan’s city flower, the Phoenix Blossom. Beneath the pentagon-shaped canopy, the museum comprises a series of terraced rectangular volumes, several of which are cloaked in greenery as an extension of the adjacent park. The planted green terraces also help provide shading and communal gathering space.

Inspired by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, TMFA’s terraced galleries are stacked vertically and offset from one another to create a combination of indoor and outdoor spaces that promote natural ventilation. Glass shutters enclose each rectangular volume, and they can slide up and overhead to fully open the gallery space to the outdoors. To filter in natural light and create a cool microclimate, the pentagon-shaped roof is punctuated by a pattern of fractal openings oriented to the east, south, and west. Rainwater is also harvested from the roof and recycled as toilet-flushing water and irrigation water.